


Cagamosis

by ponderinfrustration



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay
Genre: Angst, F/M, Kay!verse, Loss of love, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9879488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: Christine contemplates her marriage to Raoul.





	

She should not have married him. It was a mistake, a terrible, awful mistake. Oh, it seemed the thing to do at the time. _Marry the young Vicomte and he’ll solve all your problems_ , the voice whispered in her mind. No condemning glares in the street, side-eye glances and whispers. Only a husband, and a baby, and all as it should be to their eyes.

It is only now she realises it. Would she had realised it sooner.

He does not see it, does not understand. He puts it down to the lingering grief, the difficulty of the pregnancy, the shock of waking up from the chloral months later to a baby boy with a flawless face, yet who looks nothing like the man supposed to be his father, does not even have the same shape of features

Of course, it is difficult to tell the father of a newborn baby unless there are _distinguishing_ features. A disfigurement, a particular nose, a certain shape of eye or ear. And so her secret is safe, for now. Or at least, until the boy is old enough for his true father to become apparent.

With any luck he'll take after her.

Would that she had not married him. Would that she had attempted to manage on her own. If she had died of the complications, it might be a mercy.

(She does not tell him that, no. Does not even permit the thought into her prayers, though it is there, all of the time, lingering in the back of her mind.)

He treats her as if she is fragile, as if she might crack without a moment’s warning. And there is a part of her that longs to laugh, to tell him that she is not a seven ton chandelier rigged to explode, to tell him that she is just as strong as she ever was. But he has never believed her strong, not truly, has always shared the thought that she needs to be minded, that she is inherently fragile, especially now, after the _recent difficulties_.

Perhaps she would have died if she had not married him, but she thinks it more likely that there may have been no complications in the first place. She panicked, that was all. Who in her position wouldn't have? Lover dead, a secret child hidden in her belly…no father, no husband, no home, no money. She could have hidden underground, stowed herself away like _he_ would, but that was always the problem, wasn't it? She could not live like that, whatever the love in her heart.

And she cannot live up here, either, in this gilded cage masquerading as a house. It is not where she belongs. They frown on her, all of them, and if she had stopped to think, she would have realised that before it was too late.

Would that she had.

She loved him, once. She knows that, remembers it, but it is so long ago, so far away, that it is in another world. She is not the woman she was, not by a long shot. But he is not the man he was either, and how can there be a future for them, when there is only numbness in her heart?

At least she has the baby, and he need never know about the deceit that led to his name, about the mistake. And if she has any say, he never will.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt sent to me by rjdaae which read "Cagamosis - An unhappy marriage."


End file.
